Amid the escalating cycle of violence, President Bashar al-Assad’s regime continues to hold Syria’s main cities and operate effectively in the countryside. The armed opposition has failed to seize any of the cities, block them off from the army, or assert its control over them. But it has succeeded in spreading into rural areas and turning them against the regime, and it retains the capacity to stage hit-and-run attacks in urban neighborhoods.
This has proven to be the outcome, in turn, in the cities of Deraa, Hama, Idlib and Homs, followed by Damascus, and now apparently in Aleppo, too. All the battles in these cities culminated in the army asserting control, but without being able to prevent further attacks on its positions and troops.
The conflict in Syria is becoming a war of territory. Whoever wins it, wins in the negotiations. The behavior of both sides bears that out.
When the armed opposition decided to launch its battle for Damascus, following the July 18 bombing of the national security headquarters, it sought to mount a surprise offensive that would divide the city into several sections. The plan was to seize suburbs adjacent to the airport road, and advance towards the center so as to split off various districts from one another...
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/battles-damascus-and-aleppo